A Thinking Ahead to Summer List

Despite the cool weather in Northern New Mexico this week, all thoughts turn to summer. Maybe it’s because I have a school-age child who is chomping at the bit to be released from school at the end of the month, or maybe because I myself cannot shake that childhood conditioning that equates May with summer anticipation, but summer is ahead and it’s on my mind.

I’m so ready for long, languid evenings when the sun fades from bright blue to pink to purple, for the lush greenness of grass underfoot, for the smell of flowers and the hum of bees. We are lucky, up here on our mesa-top, to have such supremely splendid summers.

I’ve drafted a short list, of goals and dreams and plans, for the season. It’s not anything formal or set in stone, really just a mish-mash of vibes and ideas that I want to attempt. It has nothing to do with needing new things, because sometimes I think we feel that we need to buy our way into a change of season. With the state of the world the way it is, who can afford that? Instead, it’s more a list of ways I want to move myself from Spring to Summer — move my mind, my body, and my surroundings.

1. Getting my hands into the dirt.

2. Regular bookstore and library trips.

3. Junk journal night every other week.

4. Walking pilgrimage.

5. Battling the literacy crisis.

6. Jotting things down.

1. Getting my hands into the dirt.

   Gardening. All of the gardening! Last weekend was spent getting the back yard ready for the season ahead: I cleaned out the green-house and my husband prepared the hive boxes. Our new bees arrived this week, and maybe just maybe we will be able to keep these alive for more than just the summer and fall (we had a hornet massacre sometime over the winter). This will be our third summer in this house and we’re starting to see some action — the raspberries are growing on the older canes, my roses are reaching toward the top of their arch, plants are returning and establishing and spreading. We are planning out the vegetable garden and will hopefully be planting starts in the coming weeks. I have high hopes for a beautiful garden, even if the late freezes have struck down any hopes for fruit on our young trees.

1. Regular library and bookstore trips.

   I want a book-saturated summer. I want my library holds list to stretch for pages, alongside a steady stream of check-outs. I want to single-handedly substantially increase the monthly patron reports. I want to be the Queen of Library Cards!

   I joined our local indie bookstore’s membership program a few months ago, which means I get to pick up a book every month with my membership fee. I want to buy books as gifts and buy all of the new stationery they stock. I am determined to be a regular.

2. Junk journal night every other week.

   Speaking of our local bookstore, they host a junk journaling night every other week and it is just the coziest time. I take my daughter and we craft and chat and the vibes are just really, really good. I want to be more in community with events like that.

4. Walking pilgrimage.

   I have this crazy idea that someday I want to do a walking pilgrimage. A portion of the Camino or maybe St Cuthbert's Way— I want to walk somewhere where thousands of other steps have fallen over the centuries, all heading to the same place. That feels very much like a prayer, and I want a small part of it. To walk and see the world slide alongside, to feel the beat of my steps beneath me. That means I need to start right here where I am: regular pilgrimages to the local park, to the canyon behind our house, out and away for half an hour, an hour. No music, nothing in my ears but the wider world.

5. Battling the literacy crisis.

   Having an almost twelve-year old right now is terrifying. Near the top of the list of things that scare me is the literacy crisis — so much of the wrong and rot in our society is influenced and fed by it. She is a reader, thank the Universe, but I can’t help worrying. Schools are using AI in the classroom (tell me why a fifth-grade research assignment includes gathering sources from the classroom chatbot), short-form media is warping attention spans, and everything just feels like it’s crumbling. We are taking action in any small way we can: less screen time (she only gets screen time on a family computer in our living room, we are a no-phone-yet family), absolutely no social media, designated reading times. For the summer and beyond, I’ve ordered a vocabulary building game off eBay to play at dinner — we talk about words and phrases, but I want to go even deeper. I also don’t restrict what music she listens to — looking back on my own word-filled childhood, I think that so much of my early foundations in vocabulary can be traced not only to the books I was reading, but to the lyrics I was singing. Songs lead to poems, and we all know the magical paths poetry leads to.

6. Jotting things down.

   I already do this but I want to do it more! More lists, more snippets, more notes. Not every bit of writing has to be “a piece.” I want to fill all of my notebooks with half-finished thoughts — anything that pops into my mind. I want the pages to be where I record and explore everything. Messy, casual, hopeful, spontaneous…no more being precious, no worry about “aesthetics,” just pen to paper.

I have big hopes for Summer of 2026. The world feels so wildly out of control right now, and I am grasping hope wherever I can find it. Local community, my family, the earth under my feet. It’s all I have influence over and right now that has to be enough.

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